


Can't You Tell? (We're Falling)

by hiza-chan (callunavulgari)



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Religious, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-23
Updated: 2012-01-23
Packaged: 2017-10-30 01:24:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/326205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/pseuds/hiza-chan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What Shisui knows is this: the stories have it wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Can't You Tell? (We're Falling)

**Author's Note:**

> For notebook_chan. I sincerely hope that there's no objection to vaguely sacrilegious religious overtones. I blame it on too much Supernatural, and really, the prompt, ""Yeah. All because of you, I lost my wings. My ticket into paradise. Do you want to know if it was worth it?" wouldn't let this image out of my head.

When they were young, Shisui showed him the world. He led Itachi by the hand and showed him how the sun would set over the Mayan temples- how the snow looked at the peaks of the Himalayas. He showed Itachi the wonders of the world, Stonehenge coming into existence before their very eyes. They would watch the humans, idly passing the days by as they toyed with the sunlight streaming through the clouds.

They were happy then, back when the world was simple. When human beings cut the hearts from friends and enemies alike in the name of their faith.

They watched the world turn, and when that grew tiresome, Shisui would show him the way the ice and dust of Saturn's rings would cling to their wings.

Temples of gold and pearls, gates of emeralds and walkways of sapphire. The stories all told it differently. Some said that it was paradise- that you would sing hymns forever and never cry again. Others said that it was a place that you chose of your own making. That you erected the walls of your own personal paradise, be it a castle of sand or a home with your loved ones.

He won't quite say which of those stories are true- supposes that they're all true in their own way.

What he will say is that to the angels?

The Earth is far more splendid to look upon, if only to watch it change.

.

The angels all tell this story differently- that the bringer of light fell with an apple and a lie, or maybe it was before that- the moment that the first man breathed his first.

There are tales that the light bringer fell before the world was even a thought in their fathers head- back when there were only the angels, stumbling through the dark. That the darkness drove him mad- that Hell was created long before Earth was.

.

What Shisui knows is this: the stories have it wrong.

The humans do not know their true names, the same way that the world will never understand that the prince of darkness was once the bringer of light.

.

The stories are wrong.

Adam is a figment; Eve a metaphor; the tree though- the tree does exist.

A tree of knowledge, it's said.

It's said that the serpent enticed Eve to take a bite of the fruit- but no one seems to understand that it wasn't a human who first ate the fruit of knowledge, but an angel.

The humans never polluted the garden, and their sins came from something not quite as simple as a bite of fruit.

.

"They're calling you Lucifer now, you realize?"

Itachi spares him a look through his lashes, and scoffs.

"I suppose they don't want it getting out that the best of us was the one who took that first leap, but what can you do? Shall I call you Lucy, or would that be a bit too presumptuous?"

There's a thread and needle in the devil's hands, and the world is his tapestry.

"You're assuming that I like my new name, Shisui. I assure you, this is not the case."

.

What people don't understand, is that they're enamored with the idea of evil. That they take something simple and twist it until it pops, becoming something else entirely.

They will never look at their devil and see an angel who thought the world was more beautiful than the Kingdom of Heaven. Never see a man who looked at a fellow brother starving in the desert and offered him food and water.

The devil's name is lost to the winds of time, and no one seems to remember that he'd once watched with wide eyes as the northern lights danced around him.

No one.

Except for him.

.

"A few of our brothers seem to want your head on a platter."

"Let them try."

Shisui breathes deep- lets it out slow and steady.

"They want me to lead the charge."

Itachi takes his hands away from his loom, and Shisui watches the curve of his wrist; the fabric that's wound there, tight enough that they look like shackles. Itachi looks at him- just looks, head cocked, eyes curious. "Will you?"

"Do you want me to?"

Itachi smiles. "I hear I'm not the only one with a new name nowadays, Shisui. Or do you go by Michael now?"

Shisui looks away from Itachi, away from the shackles of yarn around his wrists, and tries to remember what it felt like to have ice catch in his wings. He wonders if Itachi would join him, if he asked him.

"Will you run me through, Shisui? Like the stories say?"

Itachi gets to his feet, lets them guide him to Shisui- so close that feathers slide together, black and red.

"Or," Itachi purrs, one hand coming up to stroke a line down Shisui's throat, "do you perhaps wish to run me through in another way entirely?"

Shisui steps away from the embrace. Away from the warmth of Itachi's arms; away from the smell of old parchment and soft wool, and lets himself out into the rain.

.

"Would you like to kill me then, darling?" the devil asks him, and Shisui's grace aches.

I would never, he would like to say.

Their brothers are watching them closely, so he doesn't say it. Instead, he casts Itachi away from him.

.

"We were something, once," Itachi says, face shuttered and shadowed in the dim light. The fire has long grown cold, and it's been days since Itachi has touched his tapestry. Days that the world has gone unaided, humans left to fend for themselves.

It's been days since Itachi has meddled in human affairs, and already their greed grows.

"We are still something," Shisui whispers back. "Here, in this room, we are all we have."

.

It has been six months since the devil last touched his tapestry.

Their Father, furious with his creations, drowns all but a select few.

Itachi sighs, and picks up his needles.

.

"I love you," the devil whispers.

.

"Yes," Shisui whispers back. "Forever."

.

The thing that you have to remember here is this: more often than not, stories get it wrong.

.

"I fell for you," he says to Itachi's back, and his wings hurt- he feels gutted without the Grace burning bright in his chest.

Itachi's fingers freeze, still woven into the fabric of the world. They tremble.

"I fell for you," Shisui says, because his name will never be Michael, and Itachi's will never be Lucifer. Maybe to the world, but never to each other.

"I fell," he says, "and I love you."

.

"You fell for me," Itachi says, the words blurred and indistinct, lips pressed into the hollow of Shisui's throat. "Was it worth it?"

.

The stories tell of a war between two of Heaven's greatest archangels. What they don't tell, is the story of two brothers who watched the world unfold before their eyes. What they hide in the crinkled edges of a page is the true story. Of two brothers who let the ice of Saturn's rings get caught in their wings, two brothers who watched the sun set at the edge of the world- two brothers who loved too much.

What they don't tell you is this:

It's not the devil you know.

The stories are wrong.

Two angels lost their wings, and made a paradise of their own.

And that even now, their fingers are caught in the webbing of the world.

Weaving.


End file.
